Going on a Desktop Diet

With no specific state or federal mandates to districts to maintain comprehensive technology infrastructure, how do districts, in the face of mounting financial pressures, continue to build and maintain their networks, integrate their systems, and expand their resources in a way that is reasonably "budget-proof?" In this article, the author describes how Pawtucket, Rhode Island, an urban district of 16 schools with 9,000 students, has achieved this goal by buying and building terminal servers and converting their desktop computers into thin clients. Terminal servers are specialized servers that host applications and communicate remotely with multiple computers and other devices. Thin clients are specialized devices that exchange keyboard strokes, mouse clicks, and video with a terminal server. Together, a terminal server and thin client emulate a local computer and desktop experience for multiple users. Several lessons that the district learned along the way are discussed. (Contains 7 online resources.)